In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
All Commentaries on John 1:1 Go To John 1
Sophronius of Jerusalem
AD 638
The Life of the Evangelist John
John, the beloved disciple [see Jn. 13:23], was the son of Zebedee and the brother of James, who was beheaded by Herod after the Passion of the Lord [see Acts 12:1-2]. John was the last of the Evangelists to write a Gospel. At the request of the bishops of Asia, he wrote his Gospel to combat the teachings of Cerinthus and other heretics, and especially the newly appeared doctrine of the Ebionites, who claimed that Christ did not exist until Mary gave birth to Him. This prompted John to expound on Christ’s divine generation. There is another reason why he wrote. After examining the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke from beginning to end, John confirmed that they had recorded the truth [in contrast to authors of other, so-called gospels then in circulation]. Then he composed his own Gospel, focusing on the final year of the Lord’s earthly ministry and on His Passion. John omitted most of the events of the previous two years because these had already been faithfully recorded by Matthew, Mark and Luke. A careful study of the four Gospels will resolve the apparent discrepancies between John’s narrative and the narratives of the other three Evangelists. John also wrote an epistle, which begins, That which was from the beginning. This epistle is accepted as John’s by all ecclesiastical and scholarly authorities. The other two epistles bearing his name—the first, beginning, The elder unto the elect lady; and the second, The elder unto the well-beloved Gaius—are considered by some to be the work of a certain John the Elder, whose tomb (one of two bearing the name John) still exists in Ephesus to this day. Others, however, maintain that these two epistles are also the work of John the Evangelist. We will say more about this in the Life of Papias, the disciple of John. [This Life was not included here]. Now in the fourteenth year of his reign, the emperor Domitian initiated the second major persecution of Christians (Nero’s persecution was the first). John was banished to the island of Patmos and there wrote the Apocalypse, later translated by Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. After Dometian was murdered, his decrees were annulled by the Senate on account of their inhuman cruelty. Nerva ascended the throne, and John was allowed to return to Ephesus, where he lived until [101 AD, the fourth year of] Trajan’s reign. During this time, John founded and built up churches throughout Asia. In the sixty-eighth year after the Passion of the Lord, John reposed in great old age near Ephesus.
